Category Archives: By Hand London

Silk squiggle Sarah

BHL Sarah shirt

Hey hey! Sharing my new shirt today, which is By Hand London’s latest release, the Sarah Shirt. It was released yesterday, but don’t worry I’m not that fast: I helped the girls out on the pattern development so got to sew it up pre-release.

BHL Sarah shirt

Now if you review my previous projects you’ll see a serious dearth of button-down, collared shirts. They’ve just never been my thing, but I’ve been trying a few new shapes and styles lately (turtlenecks, wide leg pants) so thought it was time to give them another go. And I like it a lot! Sarah has two views – one with long, full sleeves gathered into a little cuff and a rounded collar, and one with short cuffed sleeves and a pointed collar. Both have a super-swingy flared shape with box pleats on the front and back yokes – the big bonuses of this silhouette being extreeeeme comfort and very easy to fit.

BHL Sarah shirt

I cut a straight size 8/12 of View 2 and the fit is pretty good, even without making any of my usual BHL adjustments. It’s great for us pears as the shoulder/bust fit is nice and snug while flaring over the hips and bum. Next time I’ll do a full biceps adjustment as the sleeves are a wee bit tight, but not unbearably so. (nb. it looked really cute sleeveless before I added them – potential future ‘hack’…) I’d also use less stiff interfacing in the collar – it was all I had to hand but it should definitely be lighter weight as it doesn’t want to lie completely flat.

BHL Sarah shirt

The yoke is sewn burrito-style for a clean finish and the collar needs a bit of handstitching on the underside but winds up nice and tidy too. I used French seams throughout except the armsyces which are overlocked. I’d call it a weekender type of project – not too taxing but enough detail to keep it interesting. And I hope if you buy it you like the instruction booklet and tech diagrams, because that’s mostly my handiwork…!

P2091346

My fabric is a lovely lightweight silk that I’ve had in my stash for ages after scooping it up in a House of Hackney sample sale. I bought a lot of it so I’ve still got enough left for another project. I think you’ll need something as drapey as you can manage for this shirt so you don’t get a stiff sticky-outy lampshade effect. Spray starch would be my pro tip to make cutting and stitching floaty fabrics easier.

BHL Sarah shirt

I like how it looks with all the swinginess tucked in too! I’m really glad I got a little push to try a new silhouette – it’s been worn to work and on an evening out to the opera already, and I might make a second in a solid colour. You can pick up the Sarah PDF pattern here. Are you a fan of the swing?

In the navy

Roberts dress hack

I’ve treated myself to a bit of selfish sewing in between a lot of slightly harried Christmas gift making. I hadn’t made any woven day dresses for a while, so I used a couple of lovely stash prints to make some sweet winter-appropriate ones, both coincidentally in navy blue.

Roberts dress hack

This wee swing dress is a copy of a RTW one I bought on ASOS and proceeded to want to wear every darn day. No waist = SO comfortable, and with a cardi and tights it’s plenty warm enough for the very mild winter we’re having so far (16°c, bright and sunny – practically BBQ weather!).

roberts dress hack

I used the ever-adaptable Marilla Walker Roberts top as a basis, just lengthening and slash-and-spreading for swinginess like so.

Roberts dress hack

The fabric’s a shibori-style border print viscose poplin that I ordered from Caroline at Blackbird Fabrics in Canada. I got stung with a customs fee on the package but luckily I think this fabric was worth it. (I got some tie-dye effect jersey in the same order, which became a regular Roberts tee!) The poplin weave gives it a bit more heft than normal viscose. and I cut half the front and back on the crossgrain to give more of a patchwork than border effect.

Roberts dress hack

Same as the RTW inspiration, I did not bother with real buttonholes: the buttons are just sewn on through both layers.

Roberts dress hack

The result is so super 90s but I still dig it. Here’s how I’ve been wearing it out and about.

Zeena dress

Secondly, I made a By Hand London Zeena dress from a super special fabric I’ve been hoarding for a while. I’ve been wanting to try it since seeing Fiona’s super sweet versions, and Elisalex was kind enough to send me the PDF as I’m doing a bit of work for them.

Zeena dress

Zeena’s scoop neck and kimono sleeves are bang in my usual style bracket but the deep box pleats are a bit of a departure. I’m not the biggest fan of box pleats on any sort of stiff fabric because I think they look overly formal, but in this light viscose they just drape and swish ever so prettily and still look daytime-appropriate. Actually though I did redraft the skirt pieces because I felt they were just a bit too wide and full: I just cut narrower rectangles and pleated by eye to match the bodice edge.

Zeena dress

I used bodice view 2 (scoop neck, short sleeves) with the midi length skirt, and did my standard BHL fit alterations: wedges out of front and back necklines, forward shoulder adjustment, and swayback.

Zeena dress

Small design tweaks in the back: I left a little split like my Anna-Kim and inserted the invisible zip just over the waistline portion rather than from the neck down – just a weird personal preference. Next time I’ll take a bit more out of the back length as it’s a touch too long even after doing a swayback. I’ve left a bit of ease in the waistline but may take it in for a snugger fit (but maybe, um, after Christmas). Overall though this is an easy-fit, easy-sew dress – a bit like the Anna dress’s casual cousin, don’t you think? – and I’ll definitely be making a couple more some time.

Zeena dress

The dreamy origami kitty fabric is from French store Bennytex but long sold out I’m afraid – I nabbed some as soon as I saw Jolies Bobines’ Brumby skirt made with it. I got 3m and still have enough left for another little project.

Zeena dress

Apparently my fabric choice and tidy guts get the seal approval from the mister, too. I think this’ll be my Christmas day dress as it’s so nice and comfortable. I’m off tomorrow to spend a few days with family. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

AnnaKim Skywalker

Anna-Kim

Sewing time has been woefully hard to find lately, but here’s a wee dress I made recently for a friend’s wedding. I procrastinated for ages on what pattern to use and ended up short on time, so went for a TNT bodice with a frankenpattern twist.

Anna-Kim

If you didn’t deduce from the post title, it’s the By Hand London Anna bodice with Kim‘s pretty petal skirt. Then I couldn’t resist a bad Star Wars pun since the fabric print sort of looks like little space invaders! As we know BHL patterns are definitely ripe for a spot of Frankenpatterning and I think this is a lovely combo. I wish I could say I carefully planned the hack but in fact I just cut both patterns out as is and hoped for the best. The back darts join up seamlessly and I sort of eyeballed the front as I went along. With a bit of fiddling I made the wrapover skirt front hit the outer bust tuck of the bodice so it sort of looks cohesive all round. Yay!

Anna-Kim

Luckily the Kim skirt fitted fine with mini tweaks along the way. I exaggerated the side seam shape a bit, curving out at the hip and pegging in at the hem for more of a tulip shape. I also made a tuck instead of the little pleats in the wrapover skirt to echo the bodice design.

Anna-Kim

As one final flourish I left the top half of the back seam open like a keyhole split. There’s an invisible zip right below it to close the dress. The neckline is finished with self-bias.

Anna-Kim

The fabric is a lovely silk double georgette (I think) that I got at Mood in LA; it might’ve been from the Anna Sui section. It was the last 1.5yd on the bolt and I used nearly every last scrap. It was a little shifty to cut but pretty nice to sew. It’s quite bouncy and thick but still pressed well, though I serged my seam allowances rather than French as I thought it’d be a bit bulky.

Anna-Kim

This isn’t overall my best or most precise sewing as I was up against it with time. But it’s nice to have made a little black dress for party season – something my wardrobe was lacking – and I’d definitely use the Anna-Kim combo again.

A Kitty Holly

Kitty Holly

The wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

This is a double By Hand whammy – my approximately billionth Holly dress hack, plus the fabric was printed by their very own super-printer, Patsy.

Kitty Holly

I was one of the first to have a play with the By Hand fabric customis-o-matic – firstly because I helped the girls design the whole uploading process, and secondly because I backed their Kickstarter campaign to fund the printer. When to came to cashing in my reward print of 2m of fabric, it didn’t take too long to decide what to send to Patsy. I designed an interpretation of the Rudyard Kipling Just So story, The Cat Who Walked By Himself, which has always been a favourite of mine since I was a kidlet.

Kitty fabric

When I got the fabric though, way back before Christmas, I was a bit stumped as to what to make with it for a while. It’s not the kind of fabric I’d usually buy: it’s a cotton poplin so rather stiff and crisp to the touch – barely any drape at all. Then I remembered I already made Holly in a fairly crisp wax print and it’s one of my favourite dresses, so suddenly it seemed obvious.

Kitty Holly

Working with the fabric during the sewing process was easy enough. Its crispness means it presses and stitches up really smoothly, so hemming and doing the neckline and cuffs were a piece of cake. However I did find that it left permanent marks when I needed to unpick a few bits (*glares at buttonholes*) and I had a slight issue where I tried on my unfinished bodice and it tore right down the side, requiring a crafty patch-up that’s luckily now hidden under the arm. It feels more secure now it’s all sewn up but I’m slightly concerned I might bust out of it, Hulk-like, with any excessive arm movements. Next time I might consider underlining the fabric for a bit more strength.

Kitty Holly

Anyway, I’m really pleased with the fit I achieved, and with such a crisp fabric you really need to make sure you have the fitting nailed because any little error will show pretty clearly. Despite my initial misgiving about the fabric’s stiffness it’s very comfortable to wear, and I’ve washed it twice already with no noticeable fading or bleeding to the colours.

Kitty Holly

Now if Patsy could just start printing on a nice drapey viscose or knit, that’d make my day!

Super happy fun Holly

Holly dress

All right, one last fun little make before I sign off for Christmas. This dress just makes me happy! It all came together quite organically and turned out exactly how I planned in my head. I needed that after coat-gate and a lot of selfless Christmas stitching.

Holly dress

I used the BHL Holly bodice, sized up to a 14 like my previous ones for a looser fit, and popped in a metal zip instead of buttons. Gotta love a TNT bodice and all the variations it can give you once the fit is perfected.

Holly dress

THIS FABRIC THOUGH. 1.5m of it accidentally slipped into my Shaukat shopping cart when I ordered some Liberty fabrics for Christmas gifts. It’s called Peter Woodward and omg it has tiny manga-style lions, dragons and unicorns all over it. I love how it’s basically a total novelty print but the muted colourway keeps it quite subtle. Looking down at those happy little animal faces really makes me smile though.

Holly dress

The skirt is simply the width of the fabric gathered to fit at the top – I didn’t have enough yardage for anything else. Tana lawn is about 53″ wide so it’s a slimmer fit than I usually make with gathered skirts but I like the resulting shape a lot. It does hella cling to tights though, I need to buy/make a slip.

Holly dress

The zip was a last minute decision. I was going to do buttons on the bodice ending at the waist, but thought a metal zip might offset the cute-factor of the print a bit. There are no other fastenings on the dress, so undoing the zip does give a bit of extra wiggle room to get in and out of it.

Holly dress

OK, I think that’s me out for now – off for some family time and hoping Santa brought me all the sewing goodies I asked for. Have a great one, everyone!

Festive diamonds Anna

Firstly, quick thanks for the kind comments on my coat. I wrote that post the day I finished it when the woes of making it were still quite raw, so I was probably a bit more harsh on it than it deserved. Reading the lovely comments and actually wearing it all week (it’s become my daily coat) have made me very fond of it. Hurrah!

Onto a much more breezy sew, my third BHL Anna dress, with a festive spin. This dress started with a pin:

… which sadly leads to a dead Etsy link, but it was enough to spark the idea of a copycat. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not really a vintage style kind of sewist or indeed person, but I fell head over heels for this 1950s frock. The washed-out black silk, kimono sleeves, ruffly skirt and of course that fab geometric diamond pattern over the waist. Siiiigh. The silhouette immediately said Anna to me, so that was my starting point for recreating my take on it.

Anna dress
BHL Xmas
BHL Xmas
Appropriately, I wore it to BHL’s Christmas party bash last week, which was held even more appropriately on the fabric mecca of Goldhawk Road in a cosy Polish restaurant. BHL sure do make a good party frock pattern, I think about half us at the dinner were in BHL creations! It was a lovely night, as anything social involving sewists always is. Thanks Kathryn for snapping these photos in front of the impressive Christmas tree for me.

Anna dress

I should really have used a silk for this dress, as it says right in the description that my vintage inspiration is made of silk georgette. But the idea of creating the patchwork detail in diaphanous silk made me shudder, so I went for a rather sturdier cotton sateen in black and beige from Minerva (this is my Minerva network project so the fabric was provided for me). It’s my first time using sateen and I love it – it’s got a nice heavy drape, takes stitches and pressing beautifully and looks a bit formal with its sheeny finish.

Anna dress

To copy the dress, I cut the Anna bodice straight across about an inch shy of the end of the tucks. I folded the tucks out of the lower piece (and the darts out of the back) then joined the front and back together to make a wide strip, which formed the pattern piece for the diamond panel. I used this tutorial to cut and piece the diamonds and some strenuous maths to make sure I had the right size template to fill the length and width of the panel. With such a colour contrast accurate sewing was key, so I really took my time to get all the points lining up. The final panel got backed in a plain piece of fabric to hide the raw edges. When it came to sewing the bodice back on I just box-pleated at the notches to retain the effect of the tucks.

Anna dress

I used the Anna’s seven-gored skirt but chopped about six inches off the top so it was a bit wider than my bodice edge. Then I lightly gathered the top edge to fit the bodice, so I got a nice flared shape with minimal bulk around the waist. I’m quite pleased with this simple pattern mod and will probably use it again – a bit fancier than just whacking a plain gathered rectangle on.

Anna dress

This dress was really fun to make and wear and it’s a good one to have in the wardrobe for semi-dressy occasions. I’m looking forward to seeing more Christmas party outfits in blogland!